


A Wounded Bird

by LightningEyed



Category: Pathfinder (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 06:00:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18404567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LightningEyed/pseuds/LightningEyed
Summary: Shelynites are taught to see the world through rose-colored glasses, but on her deathbed, a cleric of twenty years learns that her goddess has a darker side, and that gazing through such a lens for so long can blind even the immortal.





	1. Movement One: Broken Wings

Eberlin strode back, dancing across the ground, up the polished steps although she wasn’t watching them. Her opponent was not so coordinated. His weapon was much larger and heavier. The rush of air as it passed ruffled her blue skirt, shifting the chain mail beneath with a soft  _ chink _ .

Her elven blood allowed her to see in the faintest of light sometimes, but as she was pushed further back into the shadows, she realized that even  _ her _ vision was failing. Still, the sounds, the swish and clink of her skirts, the crunch of his steps, continued.  _ A dance watched by no one _ , she thought.

Somewhere, she misstepped, or perhaps her dancing partner tired of such a coordinated game. The shaft of her glaive snapped, and his axe dug into her shoulder, lifted and dug again, splitting the links of her armor, pushing her to the ground. She tried to lift herself up, scanning anxiously for the next attack. But her arm was nearly severed, and she was too dizzy to support her own weight, and she collapsed before that next attack was launched.

She heard a strangled cry, the sounds of struggling, and a whisper, and it took her a moment to recognize that her opponent had switched dancing partners. The noise faded, and she didn’t notice the approaching footsteps until they landed beside her.

“Here perches a wounded bird.” The voice was a whisper. “Tell me, wounded bird, how did you come here? Did the breaker of trinkets draw you in, or did you hope to escape him in the shadows?”

Eberlin gritted her teeth. She was lightheaded. “The second. I would never go anywhere that a follower of Rovagug led.”

The blood was still seeping from her shoulder, and futilely, she tried to channel enough into it to stop the bleeding. The brightness of it revealed the face of the one beside her, though, and she flinched as his hand, or what she thought was his hand, touched her cheek. Claws attached to his fingers by leather strips dragged across her skin, and her heart accelerated with adrenaline, and she couldn’t channel enough to stop herself from bleeding. Tears welled in her eyes, and she whimpered.

“No, little bird. That is not the way. Sing, as you were meant to sing, or be silent.”

The faintest light, Eberlin knew not from where, reflected off his pale palm, granting her a second glance. The ridges of scars covered it. He was, of course, a Kuthite. She felt as though a hand had clenched her heart.

Shakily, afraid, she wavered out the first few notes of the only song that came to her. The tears surged. Her throat tightened. She had recognized it, half-consciously, as a lullaby. A deep breath, another stifled whimper, and she managed the first verse before stopping again with the taste of blood in her mouth.

“It is a shame to see a bird so wounded that it cannot sing.” His voice was still a rasping whisper.

“Sometimes I must pause in my singing to appreciate the art of others.” She took his hand weakly, tracing the decorative scars. “There is beauty in your pain. I am trying to find the beauty in my own.” She could not keep her hand up; it dropped to her chest. “A bird that cannot fly knows that its time has come, yet it holds its silence for fear that something will notice its wings are broken. But you can see that my wings are broken. Once that is revealed, there is nothing left to fear.”

“Do you not fear death?”

“Beauty grows from death.” Eberlin’s voice trembled. “What is there to fear in death but pain? I make peace with my pain.”

He shifted his hand, dragging the clawed gauntlet across her cheek. “Your mistress would be proud of you.”

She exhaled evenly, slowly, trying not to wince at the claws. “That I hope. But what of you to your master? Sitting here, as you are, talking to me as I die? Soothing me, one might suggest.”

“I do not intend to let you die comfortably.” He picked up Eberlin’s hand and bent one of her fingers back, watching her face carefully though the darkness was nearly perfect, doubtlessly seeing the pleading, the terror, then frowning, setting her hand down less than gently. “No. It seems wrong to break your hands. They are your instruments of creation. I have no desire to alienate you from Shelyn.” He extended one of his claws, carving something intentionally into her wrist. “I will make of you a work of art, as I have made myself. When the pain stops, little bird, you will know it is done.”

“Let my body be your canvas.”

Eberlin closed her eyes and waited for the River of Souls to carry her away. Her tears were dry and her breath even. The claws traced over her, leaving lines of fire where they went.

_ Grant him healing, Eternal Rose, _ she prayed silently.  _ For whatever so wounded him that he finds solace in your brother’s teachings. _

She exhaled, and the lines of fire grew cold, the River washing over them.

Finished with his work, the Kuthite stood. A pattern of roses, rife with thorns, covered Eberlin’s face, chest, and unmoving arms, which lay out to the sides, palms upraised. Her eyes gazed upward, as though into his, clouds beginning to mar their jade irises, but the veil of unspoken pain searing through beneath it.

“May the suffering you endure beyond death bring you strength,” he whispered, gazing upon her, and vanished before the threatening dawn reached the horizon.

* * *

 

Phasing into consciousness, Eberlin was aware only of herself. The rest was impenetrable darkness and terrible cold. A puckered scar stretched across her torso, thickest at her shoulder. She ran her fingertips over her skin. There were other puckers, other scars, but these ran in fluid lines and sometimes clusters.

She moved her hand, and it met something, something cold that held fast to it, sending jolts through her. A language she did not know rung through her ears, so she did not respond. The words scattered into the darkness. The voice tried again, this time saying something in what sounded like Tien, and then what might have been Infernal, and then, brushing her hair aside, finally Elven.

“You are not of our lineage. Why are you here?”

“Am I dead?”

“Why are you here?” it repeated, impatient.

“I do not know. I do not know this place. Am I dead?”

“At least to the Material Plane, if you are here.”

“Where is here?”

A pause. “You truly do not know. It has many names. In Elven, as in most mortal tongues, I suppose, it is Plane of Shadow. Do you know why you are here now?”

“No.” Eberlin frowned. “I am not a Kuthite. Not like you once were, I would suppose.”

An amused, sniffing laugh. “No. Not like us. Even if you had sworn yourself to the Midnight Lord, you are not of Nidal.”

“I was raised by my human father, in Taldor,” Eberlin agreed.

The voice was silent for some time, then spoke again. “I, like those others who are here, was once of the Umbral Court. This fold in the Shadow is our place. We have made a name for ourselves, and while we venture out sometimes, even other kytons do not come here. Who were you in life? What was your name?”

“Tell me yours first.”

“I am Chambai.”

“I am Eberlin.” She debated whether to speak the truth, but Chambai was a kyton. She expected that either way she answered, the result would be the same. “I was—I am—a cleric of Shelyn.”

She could not see Chambai sneer, but she knew that that was the expression that crossed his face, all the same. “Of what brand? A delicate bird? A fragile flower? What has given you into our hands?” His nails, which had been filed into points, traced over the scars etched on her arms.

“I have told you. I do not know. Whatever you subject me to will not change that.”

“You speak boldly.” Chambai’s fingers, tipped in grotesque claws dug, suddenly, into her throat, making her gasp for breath. “Think before you chirp, songbird.”

He drew his hand back, and Eberlin traced the puncture marks weakly. “You will not fool me. Whether or not I give you an answer, you will rain torments upon me. You are a kyton. That is your way. I will tell you what I believe to be true. I am here because Shelyn wills it. There is something I must do here.”

“You have a strong faith.” Chambai leered. “A faith that will be swiftly broken. If you choose to remain here, little bird, you must become a kyton yourself. If you cannot take it, the very plane will tear you apart, its other denizens will use the shards of what you were to strengthen themselves, and you will feel every moment of it.”

“What must I do, then?” Her voice shook, and she knew he could hear her fear.

“You have such lovely eyes, eyes that you will not need here, eyes that do not see here anyways. Tear them out, child, or I will extract them with such precision that you will feel every cut and beg for the fires of Hell instead.”

Eberlin brought a hand to her face, resting it on her cheek. Her nails were kept short; although her wounds had scarred, these had not grown. Fleetingly, she wondered if they were still painted in a rainbow of colors.

“I have nothing to tear them out with,” she decided. “Nothing but my trimmed nails.”

“Then those will have to do. Your work does not have to be as delicate as your ego.”

She brought the hand to her right eye, and in the darkness, touched its lens and blinked, startled, reeling back. A deep breath, and she began with the eye closed this time, lifting her fingers to rest around it. She forced it open, digging in with her fingers. Her eyelid tried to shut on them; she forced past it, ignoring the warnings from her nerves, and pulled it. A great ache built up in the center of her head, and her other eye shifted, and she raised her hand, ready to pull that one, too, from its place. Her head rang, and her empty eye socket felt as though someone had poured boiling water over them, but it was done.

“Perhaps I spoke too soon.” Chambai’s claws tucked beneath her chin, as if tilting it up so she could look at him, but of course she could see nothing. Then, all of a sudden, it felt as though something had rammed through her eye socket, and she saw motion and heat if not light. “I will give you one eye. The other, I will leave you for now. The other, you must find for yourself, later. Or perhaps I will give it to you, when you have abandoned your Eternal Rose in favor of a teaching that makes sense.”

Eberlin lifted her hand to before her face, reaching across dimensions for a spark of connection. She found her vantage point in the planes. A faint outline of golden fire flickered across her hand, and with the one eye that was still in its place, she saw her surroundings. Her vision was blurred, but as the positive energy settled back into her skin, her sight sharpened, at least until the light died. Even just the flicker showed her Chambai’s face—ashen-skinned and framed by black hair, cheeks run through with spikes, barely recognizable as something that had once been human. It showed her her own scars—etched in the shapes of roses by the one who had watched her die. It showed her the echo of her surroundings—all dark, but with the lines of a building surrounding her. And, it showed her the collection of other kytons who perched nearby, who all reeled from the light. She didn’t blame them. The imprinted shape of her hand danced in her vision.

“I will not abandon her,” Eberlin said. “For she has not abandoned me.”

“How do you form this connection?” Chambai wondered. His voice was sharp as a knife, laden with quiet rage. “How do you bring light into Shadow? It is impossible.”

“It is very possible.” Eberlin took a deep breath, standing and walking towards him. A spark danced from her fingers, onto one of the spikes piercing through the flesh of his hand, and it illuminated with a brilliant glow. She had always seen a reddish tone when light shone through her own skin, but the light that escaped from beneath his was charcoal, as though his very blood was black. With a scowl, he tore the piercing unceremoniously from his hand and stepped on it, quenching the torchlight, though it still glimmered from beneath his boot.

“If you cast that again, I will tear off your hand. Slowly.”

A smirk crept across Eberlin’s face. She had seen, in the brief flash, a sigil hanging from his neck. She pressed her hand over it, and Chambai’s rage crescendoed. He gathered her hair with a sweeping motion of the hand, yanking at it, and with a yelp, Eberlin tumbled forward. Chambai motioned, and one of those who had been standing behind him stepped forth with a pointed spear-shaft that absorbed the light around it, thrusting it through Eberlin’s back like a butcher might skewer a sausage. She grunted, feeling tears well in her eyes and fall onto the ground beneath her. Another skewer pinned her forearm, then her elbow, and Chambai, with his unholy amulet still glowing, tugged on her hair so that she looked into his eyes.

“Do you think you are funny? This is not a comedy, child, but a tragedy.”

“All the better a stage for irony.”

“If you will not dispel the light, then move it.”

“Or what?”

Chambai hesitated, glowering, and Eberlin laughed, a strange sound in such a dark and still place. “When I am willing to sacrifice anything, there is nothing for you to hold over my head. No. I will not dispel the light. It will go away, in twenty-four Golarian hours, give or take. How such things function here, I cannot say.”

“You desecrate the mark of Zon-Kuthon.”

“I seek to remind him that he was once Dou-Bral.”

“Then we will tear you to pieces, like the others who did not belong, the misinformed, the heretics.”

“You have already said that others do not come here. Don’t speak lies to me, Chambai.”

The kyton said nothing, only took out an obsidian-bladed knife and made a series of shallow cuts on Eberlin’s wrist. Something coated the knife; the cuts stung, and Eberlin could smell her flesh burning. Her fingers clenched into a fist, her nails digging into her palms, trying to bear it without making a sound, but Chambai forced them open, lacing his own through them. The barbs of his piercings dug into her, and the points of his nails, and he bent his hand back, only slightly. It didn’t hurt at first, but built swiftly. Her breath caught in her chest, and again around the shadow-skewer in her chest, and it escaped as a wail as she felt her skin tearing away. Unlike her laughter, it did not echo or resonate; it was eaten by silence.

She bit her tongue to keep herself from begging for mercy. Her elven blood, she told herself, had given her too much pride, and besides, begging would be a moot point, since the kytons wouldn’t grant it.

The light on Chambai’s amulet was gone before Eberlin’s hand was completely severed. She hadn’t bothered counting the hours, or even the minutes, but it had faded fast; too fast, had she not been in a place which should have been pure darkness.

She contemplated asking them for their reason, but of course, they were Nidalese. They were of the Umbral Court. They had been born into darkness. Her thoughts drifted to the one who had watched her die. His skin had not been ashen, but faintly yellowish. Tian of some sort. What could have motivated him?

Some time later, Chambai lifted Eberlin’s severed hand away from the rest of her arm, murmuring a spell. It felt as though it was still connected to her, except for a burning sensation ringing her wrist, and when he yanked her fingers backwards and snapped them, she felt every bone crack, and bit her tongue nearly in half to keep from shouting.

_ He is not like the Tian one. He has no sympathy for your hands. _

Chambai touched the hand to where it had been, and the shadows wrapped the seam, seeping, it seemed, into Eberlin’s blood. But it still responded to her nerves, to her motion.

“I do not like you, Shelynite, but I respect you. You cry, but you do not expect or request me to stop.” He traced her chin, and the points of his nails drew blood. She shook with exhaustion, or perhaps she was just shivering in the cold. “Tell me of your scars. From where did they come?”


	2. Movement Two: Adagio

Lethia gathered her runestones into a pile, hearing a knock on her door.

“Come in,” she shouted through it, and the latch clicked as she emerged from the back room. To her startlement, none of which reached her face, the man that stepped through wasn’t someone she had seen before. Nor was he someone she particularly wanted to know; he wore clawed gloves and dark leather, and his face, which might once have been pleasant, was mutilated beyond recognition.

“Welcome,” she said, though she didn’t mean it. “If you seek an alchemist or an embalmer, you have found one.”

“You’re taller than I expected.” He tilted his head up to look her in the eyes. His accent, hidden beneath his whisper of a voice, was faintly Tien, which matched the yellowish hue of his skin before scars. “I have need of your services.”

“Of which sort? Alchemy or embalming?”

“The second.” Something flickered in his dark eyes. “And perhaps one unspoken. I am told you are in Pharasma’s favor.”

She had thought at first that his whispering voice had been intentional, trying not to disturb her, but now realized that something must have happened to his vocal cords; something self-inflicted, probably.

“Most embalmers are.”

“I have buried someone, once or twice,” he said, “but this person is… important.” His hands were shaking. “I cannot say how I know. But she is different. Tied to something beyond herself. I’m told you can help me discern how.”

Lethia frowned. “Prophecy is a dead art, Kuthite.”

“That is true,” he agreed, “but if there is anyone who knows the fate of a soul…”

The alchemist sighed. “Where is she?”

“I will lead you to her.”

“One moment.” Lethia disappeared into the back, throwing the stones across the bed so they wouldn’t clatter. Troubled, she swept them into their bag and tucked it into her belt. They had told her that she could trust him, which only made her warier.

Still, she followed him. He led her through the dark, but never moved against her, and stopped as they reached the end of an alley, completely shrouded in darkness even in the apparent daylight.

“I will retrieve her,” he said. “She has fallen near to my lord’s shrine. If he knows of your presence, he will expect you to follow his edicts, and I will not ask that of you. Your suffering is your business.”

“Why not bring her to me in the first place?”

“Did you expect me to carry a body across town? I do not know what is taboo here, but where I come from, that is terribly disrespectful. Besides, I might have damaged her.”

Lethia bit her tongue. “A fair point.”

He disappeared into the shadows without another word, and returned cradling a body, her green eyes clouded and sad, and still open. She hadn’t been dead long, a few hours at most, but her blood had begun to settle. And, to Lethia’s surprise, she was colorfully dressed, wearing a brilliant blue skirt beneath a chainmail shirt woven through with rainbow ribbons.

“She’s a Shelynite,” Lethia said stupidly.

“To state the obvious, yes.” The man knelt, letting the corpse’s feet rest on the ground, and taking some of the weight off of himself.

“Are those fresh scabs on her arms? How did she die?”

“A follower of Rovagug sealed her fate with an axe to the shoulder,” he answered. “Perhaps he did not know that he trespassed upon the shrine of Zon-Kuthon. We do not exactly advertise. But I, as its guardian, reminded him that not everything can be destroyed so swiftly. Him, I strangled slowly; his body, I burned with black fire.” He cast a warning look at Lethia, and she chose not to ask what he had done with the ashes.

“And the roses?” she wondered instead, tracing over the wounds on the corpse’s arms.

“Those were my doing.” The Kuthite stared evenly into Lethia’s eyes. “If it worries you, she was not dead yet when I carved them. I have always had a… a soft spot for followers of Shelyn. Most of us have, but I more so than others. Still, she had fallen upon the shrine. I cannot comfort those who come here. That is not what this place is for. We came to an unspoken agreement. She would be the subject of my torture and mutilation, and I would turn her into a work of art.”

Both of them were silent. Lethia ran her hands over the scarred roses. They were eerily beautiful, once the alchemist was able to distance herself from the thought of what it might feel like.

“What is your name? What do I call you?” Lethia wondered finally.

The Kuthite studied her, then decided, “You may call me Mitsuna.”

“You take great care not to offend the gods, Mitsuna.” Lethia motioned for him to stand. “There is a temple of Pharasma on the city’s perimeter. Carry her as you have.” She inhaled deeply, murmuring what might have been a prayer, or a spell, or both. Some color returned to the body’s flesh, though it was still clearly dead. She closed its eyes and led onwards, and Mitsuna paused to pull up his hood before standing, covering his face against the light of day, and obscuring the scars and piercings that riddled it.

Night fell as they came to the outskirts of Absalom, where the temple stood, and beside it, the graveyard sprawled out. Lethia paused to say a prayer, then led Mitsuna along a path and through the rows until they came to open space. She gathered things from her bag. Reagents, embalming tools, and the like were arranged before her.

“If you are half as strong as you look, you should be able to handle the digging.” She nodded to a shovel leaned against a young tree. Silently, Mitsuna retrieved it, careful not to tread on any graves, and began to move the earth where Lethia directed.

“Do your stones tell you what importance she has?” he wondered as Lethia stitched up the Shelynite’s mouth.

“They are rarely that clear. But pain and transformation have come up twice now, alongside the lantern. If not for the latter, I’d guess something to do with your master, but…”

“Perhaps Shelyn has sent her to him hoping he will remember who he once was.” Mitsuna lifted another shovelful of dirt, methodically. “How deep should this be?”

“Seven feet,” Lethia answered automatically. “And is that not a futile hope for her? Has she not been trying for centuries?”

“Some theorize that if she does not try to pull him back, the Dark Tapestry will corrupt her, too. Perhaps she is afraid.”

Lethia snorted. “If there is any god I would dare accuse of being afraid, it is not Shelyn.”

“No? Would you not be afraid of the Dark Tapestry?”

“Why would I be afraid of the Dark Tapestry? I have seen the Boneyard, a place feared by far greater numbers.”

Mitsuna frowned. “They say that those who return from the Boneyard are marked.”

Lethia unbound her braid, shaking out the dark auburn curls. One lock, which had been hidden among the rest, was white as snow.

“It doesn’t hold dye,” she said, before he could ask. “If I cut it out, it regrows overnight. I don’t mind it, but it unsettles most people, at least those who know what it means.”

“What of those who work in the temple?” Mitsuna nodded towards the entrance of the graveyard.

“They consider it a blessing.” Lethia rebraided her hair swiftly, then moved on to comb out the Shelynite’s, which hung free except for a few decorative twists and plaits, covering, Lethia was surprised to discover, the pointed ears of a half-elf, and a burn scar on the upper edge of her forehead. “It means that I was worthy of a second chance. Some aren’t, and some simply don’t want it.”

She turned her attention downward, placing a hand on the Shelynite’s chest, eyes flickering back up to Mitsuna briefly before she spoke what sounded like a ritualistic prayer.

“Lady of Graves, if this one’s soul is within your care, let her hear me.”

She waited for a few moments, her expression growing troubled.

“Save this message for her, then, if ever she enters it.” Lethia’s voice was strained, barely a whisper, and Mitsuna thought he saw tears in her agatelike eyes. Beyond that, her irises themselves seemed paler. “She is to be buried directly in the earth. The glaive she carried shall mark her tomb. The ground in which she lies will be planted over with flowers.”

Her tears continued to well for a few more, long moments, and then she drew her hand away. Mitsuna watched her, apparently feeling nothing, or at least making no outward sign of it.

“Her soul did not pass through the Boneyard,” Lethia said after a while. “And it is not with Shelyn. Wherever she is, she is lost. She is buried, minimizing the possibility that she will be used as an undead, but outside of the Boneyard, a soul without its body is like a rose without its roots. It cannot find water, and so it withers and loses its beauty, and the whole way, it suffers.”

“And you share in her suffering,” Mitsuna noticed.

Lethia brushed the tears from her cheeks. “We all will share in the suffering of the lost, someday. But that day may be millennia in coming.”

“Is she not truly dead, if she hasn’t…”

“Some souls do not need to be judged,” Lethia said, cutting him off. “Most often, these belong to those closely connected to their gods, those who achieve sainthood, for their destination is as good as predetermined. But she is not with Shelyn. You said earlier that perhaps she was sent to speak with Zon-Kuthon. I didn’t think Shelyn would have sent her… to him, to the Plane of Shadow, but given this, I can’t imagine where else she would be.” The Pharasmin took a deep breath, as if trying to clear her mind. “I suppose it means that she was either highly trusted, or disfavored, and I do not know Shelyn well enough to say which.”

* * *

 

Eberlin wore a robe woven from shadows themselves. It was far from warm, but at least it preserved her decency. Much of her hair had been torn from her head, though she defiantly braided what little remained. Over what she thought were weeks, she had reinforced the rose-shaped scars that covered her arms, having learned to shape the shadows into blades under the supervision of Chambai and the others.

She had not seen her own face since before she died. She wondered whether she was still beautiful, tried to dismiss the thought, but it plagued her.

More time passed by, and when the kyton cabal was watching, she shaped the shadows, and when they were not, she practiced calling the light. It became more and more difficult; it hurt to touch, and then even to behold, but she forced her own hand, motivated by fear.

_If I lose the light, what does that mean? That Shelyn has abandoned me? She wouldn’t… would she?_

And one day she raised her hand and focused on the incantation and the light did not come. She wept. She tore her chest open and clawed at her own heart, trying to force it to slow its beating, which suddenly pounded in her ears like a great chorus of drums. She screamed, and as never before, the shadows answered her with an echo as she crumpled, seeping into the tears in her skin.

“Do you see now?” Chambai wondered, and his voice was thunder, echoing from the floor and the ceiling of the colonnaded hall that held them. “The dark consumes the light in time.”

“Without light I cannot see beauty.” Eberlin whirled on him, trying her very hardest to draw on the energy of the Positive Plane, but only dredging up the surrounding shadows, which tickled at his legs, slightly, but mostly gathered around her, sliding like razor blades beneath her skin. “And there is…” She slumped to the ground… “there is no more light.”

The Nidalese smiled thinly.

“Then it is time for you to stand before the lord, to become his, now that you will not threaten him. Now that your light is gone. Now that Shelyn has forsaken you.”

“I still have not forsaken her.” Eberlin was glad to see the flicker of fear in Chambai’s eyes, to watch him step back. “I would feel every bone in my body break at once, every nerve fire at once. I would have my very blood turn to acid if I could see something beautiful in the process. But you cannot grant that. You, and your darkness, can only take away. Take me to him, then. I have nothing more to lose. I will speak to him on behalf of his sister, and if he does not want to hear it, I will sing to him instead. Let my screams form a song, my heartbeats the rhythm. He scorns her for being a flower. I will remind him that roses have thorns.”

A strange blend of spite and respect crossed Chambai’s face. He raised his hand, clasped hers, and muttered something. A shockwave emanated when he threw his palm down, and the shadowscape around them changed, a palace rather than a temple.

“Of course.” The voice tore through every sensation Eberlin possessed. “The nightingale Mitsuna sent. Bring her forth, Chambai, and go.”

Dragging her by her hand, the lampadarius brought her forth, snarling, “Turn your eyes upon him, child.”

And she did, forcing both up although only one saw. She had thought depictions of him to be dramatized, but even those did him little justice. A shudder ran down her spine. She fought the urge to look away.

“I wondered where you had gone, nightingale.”

Eberlin’s heart clenched, and she was suddenly aware that Chambai had vanished into the darkness. Zon-Kuthon waited for her gaze to return to him before speaking.

“Some part of you hopes that you are beautiful.” He smiled, or at least, Eberlin thought he smiled; the skin covering his jaw had been torn away, so it was hard to tell. “That is not the case.”

He picked something up, and Eberlin realized suddenly that the entire floor was covered in shards of glass—the panes of countless broken mirrors. She had walked over them, uncaring, and she now felt the slivers in her feet. But she was more invested in the images that wavered before her, of her own warped and mutilated face, her own body torn by shadows. She stared at it until tears formed, then tried to kick the shards away, shattering some further but unable to clear them. When she bent to cry, the glass still upon the ground showed her the same image, over and over.

“Why?” she murmured, and she cried for a long time.

Eventually, Zon-Kuthon waved a hand, and the shadows shifted to cover the broken glass, watching Eberlin tremble with sobs.

“Leave,” he said quietly, his own singular eye burning a hole through Eberlin, and she stopped crying, regaining control of herself, looking back to him. He looked shaken, and realization hit her like a dragon’s sweeping tail. Her cries _had_ formed a song, a song that she did not know, a song that would be incomprehensibly beautiful in the voice of someone other than a broken apostle kyton. She tested its notes again, and stronger this time, they filled the hall, defiant.

“I told you to leave,” the god said, patient as ever.

“Have I hit a nerve, then?” Eberlin’s voice was her own, but her words were not.

“I have told you twice now. I tell you a third, _sister._ Someday, you will sit beside me, stripped of your beauty and your voice. Someday, the stars will go dark and the rest of the gods will fall.”

“There is beauty in everything. Even in this child of mine. Even in you.” Eberlin found herself brushing the pierced heart that hung in Zon-Kuthon’s exposed ribcage. “Your heart still beats the rhythm of a song, brother.”

His face twisted even more, which Eberlin had thought impossible, and he tore the heart from its place, stepping on it. “Then let it be silenced.”

“It will come back. It always does.” Tears welled in Eberlin’s eyes, tears that belonged not to her but to Shelyn, glimmering with a light that was not there. “It wants to sing. Let it sing. Sing with me, brother. Please.”

“No.” He wrapped a mutilated hand around Eberlin’s throat. “Leave. And take your servant with you.”

“I will return,” Shelyn promised. “Just like your heart. I always do.”

“Fall into the Dark Tapestry on your way over.”

His hand clenched, and Eberlin saw light and beauty. For just a moment, his features shifted, became handsome, and then the light was too much.

* * *

 

Mitsuna lifted her body and laid it gently in the hole he had dug before climbing out.

“Why the roses?” Lethia wondered. She had been gazing at the Shelynite’s arms for a long while. “I mean, why did you choose roses? You could have carved anything.”

“Yes, they’re a little trite, aren’t they.” Mitsuna considered his clawed gauntlets. “But Shelyn’s roses have thorns. She isn’t as helpless as she acts. Kuthites among the Tian-Min are taught that she is never to be underestimated, because her beauty hides her danger. Or so I am told.”

“Are you not Tian-Min?”

“I was not always a Kuthite. Not until I came to the Inner Sea.” Mitsuna tugged his hood down, all the way, and fished through his dreadlocked hair. “I was a Shelynite as well, once upon a time. She sent me to speak to him when I died. She did not expect me to be resurrected by his followers.”

He turned over a single dreadlock in his fingers. It, like the streak in Lethia’s hair, was pure white.


	3. Movement Three: The One Who Cannot Sing

“Why? Why does it still hurt?” His voice was a wheeze.

“The embrace of Shadow always hurts, swift-finger. It is his way.”

He looked around, tears budding as he pushed himself up. The room was dim, the only source of light the sun outside, which was blocked by heavy curtains during this midday period. A scar stretched across his chest, and with every breath, it throbbed with pain. He tried to hum, to attune himself to the positive energy he’d become so familiar with, but his voice made no sound. It felt as though he had tried to breathe fire.

“What did you do to me?”

“Asai cut your voice-strings. Only some of them, but you were not breathing. She did what she had to.”

“If this is what it took to save me, you should have let me die. I’d rather be in Hell than be unable to sing.”

“She would take that as a compliment. I, personally, think it was quite rude of her. She knows you were a Shelynite.”

His eyes were finally adjusted enough to the dimness to make out the shape of the person talking to him, though it almost didn’t look like a person. Their nose was cut in long strips and held in place by steel studs, giving the impression of a skull, and tattoos covered nearly every visible inch of their body.

He closed his eyes, trying to hide his tears. “I was. Yes. So why revive me?”

“You would have fallen into the Shadow with no acclimation. Have you ever felt pain, swift-finger?  _ Real _ pain?”

The Kuthite’s voice was scathing, so he decided the easiest course of action was to shake his head. “What do you mean, fallen into the Shadow?”

“I mean that Shelyn would have thrown you there. She is convinced that there is something of the brother she loved left in our master. Since she cannot tread into the Shadow, she asks it of her devout, except sometimes, she does not ask. She throws those who know nothing of pain—those like you—into a realm that is nothing but, and they break all too quickly. They cannot stand it. The lucky ones become kytons, once in a while strong enough to speak to him, but most become a part of the Shadow itself, all their color fading, torn asunder by the strong and left to wander, and she cannot retrieve them.”

“Why do you care? Don’t you usually advocate pain?”

“I would rather see people hurting, in the process of breaking, then see them already broken and apathetic. I think most other Kuthites would agree, and I expect that the Lord himself would rather have use of his sister’s gifts than see them fade. If you are to traverse the Shadow Plane when you die, you should be prepared for it.”

“Why would she force us to…”

“Because she doesn’t care about you. She would throw a thousand of you, a million, away, if it meant she could have him back.”

“That’s a lie.”

“Is it? How do you know?”

He chewed on his words, but came up with nothing. Absently, he tried to sing again, and remembered that he could not. His breath broke, and he cried, and the figure made no move to stop him, watching the tears flow with quiet intensity.

“What is your name, child of light?” they wondered.

“Koshio Mitsuna,” he answered, raising his face to look at the figure. “May I know yours?”

“I am Nish.” Their fingers tapped against each other.

“Are you a man or a woman, Nish?”

Nish smirked. “No. And I made sure to remove whatever features might distinguish between the two long ago. Thank you for having the… courtesy to ask, though.”

“What do I call you?”

“Just Nish. Or  _ they _ . Are you finished asking questions, Koshio?”

“Mitsuna is my given name,” he corrected. “In most parts of Tian, your family name comes first.”

“Apologies.” Nish’s voice said that they didn’t mean it. “But are you finished?”

“I suppose so.”

“You will stay here for some time.” Nish retreated into a pocket of darkness, but their voice echoed. “Kaheno or I will bring you food. Asai will clean your wounds. The others do not speak Taldane, or any dialect of Tien, so unless you speak Shadowtongue, you will be unable to converse with them.”

“My wounds?” Mitsuna’s hand ran over the scar on his stomach. “Aren’t they healed?”

“If you are to learn,” Nish said, “if you are to someday face the Midnight Lord, swift-fingered Mitsuna, you will need to be wounded more than once.”

“What if I don’t want to?” Mitsuna wondered, but Nish was gone.

* * *

 

He stood in the darkness, watching the sprouts of new flowers push their ways up from the ground. As the sun rose, those sprouts would push themselves toward it, but for now they stood still in the cold, like the one buried beneath them, he expected.

“Did she ask of you what she asked of me, Wounded Bird?”

Of course, she didn’t answer. She was buried under seven feet of earth, marked only by the weapon she had once carried, its haft driven into the ground and its blade dulled beyond danger by the work of Lethia’s adamantine dagger. But the spring wind was not to be silenced even at night, and it whistled through the trees, making a song he thought he knew.

He tried to hum along, but of course it didn’t work. It never worked. He sounded as though he was wheezing.

“A shame,” he murmured to himself, “to see a bird so wounded it cannot sing.”

“We are all silent in death, Kuthite.”

He whirled. A woman—though, really, she wasn’t much more than a girl—in gleaming brass-colored armor stood behind him. He hadn’t heard her come up. She, too, carried a glaive; beneath her breastplate, a spray of rainbow ribbons flared out like a skirt. With a knowing look, she offered him a small cluster of flowers. Purple hyacinth, he realized, a symbol of sorrow, of apology. He knelt to place them on the ground, careful not to crush any of the fragile stems pushing forth, and she watched him slowly.

“You aren’t what you seem.”

“And what do you mean by that, wren?” 

“You move with too much grace for it not to be entrained.” She reached out, and he didn’t have time to shift his hand out of the way before she touched it, running her fingers over the scars etched on it, etched in the shapes of flowers, birds, trees. Where his skin was bared between the straps of his clothing, a pan flute. “You call me by the name of a bird. And these… These are her sigils, not his. I know them well.”

“She asked of me something I could not do for her. Something, apparently, that she asks of many of her faithful. The one who is buried here… I didn’t even know her name. But she dwells in the Plane of Shadow, or she did, if she has not simply faded.”

“Eberlin.”

“What?”

“Her name was Eberlin. We trained together. She was my sister, in a sense… she could have been my lover, but she didn’t want that, and I respected her. I swore an oath to protect her, and I never left her side. But we were separated, wedged apart by the children of the Beast, and…”

The paladin’s eyes shone with tears, and Mitsuna fought every instinct to take her hand, to wrap her into a hug. If he did…

He shook his head and reached out for her hand. Startled, she flinched back at first, but relaxed after a moment.

“She died well,” he said. “In pain, but at peace. She’d beaten down all but one of the followers of Rovagug, and I gave him the torment he deserved. One might say poetic justice, to one whose monster of a patron asks him to kill swiftly.”

“Then why was she taken into the Plane of Shadow?”

“Because Shelyn willed it.”

“That can’t be true.”

“What better explanation do you have?”

“Why would she?”

“Because she is selfish. She wants Dou-Bral back, and he is not coming back. She is becoming more and more desperate.”

The paladin was silent for a moment, and then she took one more hyacinth and pressed it against his chest.

“That one is for you,” she said. “I don’t know who hurt you, or how, but I am sorry.”

She turned and walked away, her fluid, dancing steps rendering her armor nearly silent.

“Her name was Asai, wren,” Mitsuna murmured. “She took my voice.”

* * *

 

Lethia scattered the runestones again. They clattered, some landing upturned and some downturned, but again, in a spiral. Always, in a spiral. Five more times, and though there was some variation in the stones that showed, they always showed pain and transformation, binding, the man, the blade, the flower.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” She swept the runestones into her bag, and behind her sorrowful gaze, her amber eyes grew pale. Her fingers trembled, and she drew a single stone, glanced at it, and nearly dropped it. With force, she overturned the hourglass that sat on her alchemy desk. The impact sent a long crack snaking through it, and Lethia’s tears flowed.

_ It is the end of a long and fruitful tragedy, _ the voice-that-knew-things said to her.  _ Do not weep for him. _

“I will weep for whomever I wish,” she told it. “Don’t try to convince me it is a sign of weakness.”


	4. Movement Four: A Long and Fruitful Tragedy

It was cold, even for early spring. Not cold enough to wither the flowers that dared to sprout, not quite, but cold enough that Mitsuna’s hands stung.

He held them with palms up, tracing over and over the scars that marked them, like a mantra. They began to turn blue in the cold, and he tried, again and again, to dredge up the energy of death, but it would not come.

He went inside, gathered his chains, and left, stepping out into the thick of the night, following his feet. He was not sure where he was going, but he glanced up and found himself in the graveyard, to the place where Eberlin was buried, once again. The paladin was there again, sitting cross-legged in front of it and singing, and a claw of realization found its way to Mitsuna’s heart. He had taken her hand, the night before. He had provided comfort. He had broken the tenets Nish had laid out for him.

Barely remembering the pattern, he searched not for the energy of death but that of life, and he found it swiftly. It glowed to golden brilliance in his palms, startling, leaving him starry-eyed. It captured the paladin’s attention as well. Her song broke, and she stared at him.

“I—I’m sorry to interrupt.”

She took a deep breath, and she did not speak so much as chant.

_ “You are welcome to keep her vigil with me. You have found the brilliance within yourself again.” _

He opened his mouth, then closed it again, remembering the vigil of Shelyn’s church.

“I cannot sing,” he admitted, in his hoarse whisper. “I cannot observe it properly.”

_ “What do you mean that you cannot sing?” _

“My voice was taken from me by the head of my temple.”

The paladin unrolled a pack that sat beside her, holding out a pan flute to him.

Shakily, he took it. He barely remembered how to produce a tune with it, but he raised it to his lips, and one note came out, then another. He set the tune, and the paladin sang along with him, through the hours until dawn. She wore a heavy cloak, and furs beneath her armor, but his skin was exposed, and he grew colder and colder. At some point, her song switched into Hallit, and he lost the words to it, but the spell of it held all the same.

The light of dawn rose on the horizon, and Mitsuna’s icy fingers lost their grip on the flute. Apologetically, he reached for it, but the paladin placed a hand on his wrist, gazing into his eyes.

_ “Try to sing,”  _ she chanted. _ “Even if you are sure you cannot.” _

He took a deep breath, trying to force his voice to shape itself, and to his surprise, it worked. A soft tenor note emanated from his lips, and the paladin wrapped her arms around him.

_ “Have you paid attention to the pattern? Can you create a final verse?” _

Mitsuna nodded, and inhaled, thinking for just a moment. When the words came, they were in Shadowtongue, and for the sake of the meter, he did not translate them. The paladin hummed along, creating a hauntingly sad harmony.

_ “Upon the brother’s shrine she stood and fought _

_ The final dance she danced was not in vain _

_ A work of love upon her body wrought, _

_ Reminding her to flare amongst her pain.” _

Dawn broke, and Mitsuna gazed into the light for the first time in a long time.

“What did it mean, your verse?” the paladin wondered.

He translated, not bothering with rhythm.

“Is she really in the Plane of Shadow?”

“If she is…” He shook his head. “I pray that she be at peace. For all the torment we wreak on ourselves in life, the Midnight Lord’s realm is unimaginably worse. There is no promise of mortality there.”

“You pray for her soul’s peace?” The paladin met his eyes admiringly. “Does that not fall outside of the edicts of Zon-Kuthon?”

“I am not his.” Mitsuna threw down the chains wrapped around his neck. “I never was, although it took all this time to realize as much. I was taught what pain is so that I might become his, but I never did.” He tilted his head, peering at the paladin. “Do you believe that Shelyn feels pain?”

The paladin took a breath, about to respond, and then halted. She frowned before continuing.

“I guess I had never thought otherwise,” she said carefully. “But why would she not?”

“Why else would she find it so impossible to understand what her brother has become?” Mitsuna touched his fingertips together. “The gods function in ways we cannot understand, and I think we function in ways, sometimes, that they cannot. My brother died when I was young, and I have moved on. I remember him in bittersweet images, but I know that I should leave his soul at peace. Resurrection hurts. I understand that, because I feel pain as he did.” He shook his head. “But if she does not… she cannot understand why she should try to move on.”

“You have strange ideas, Nightingale.” The paladin lifted more flowers from somewhere within her cape, and gave one to him: a brilliant orange rose, thorns jutting out all along its stem.  _ Fascination _ . He took it in his bare hands, and it drew blood. “May your journey lead you where you must go.”

She lay the rest of the flowers with the hyacinths from the previous night. Two more of the apologetic blossoms, purple heather, and, to his surprise, a  _ red _ rose, the color of passionate love, not the yellow of friendship.

Then she turned and strode away, the ribbons on her armor twirling in the wind, tangling together.

“Nightingale,” Mitsuna murmured, testing the name with a small smile. “He sings in the darkness, when no other bird is still awake.”

He took the chains he had worn, and wrapped them in a spiral around the base of Eberlin’s glaive, and his cold, fatigued limbs would not allow him to stand again. He pushed himself over onto his back and stared up at the shifting colors of the morning sky.

* * *

 

When Lethia stirred from her dreamless sleep, the hourglass was almost empty. She lifted two vials of mutagenic compound from the shelf above her alchemy desk, and her runestones, and her dagger. Her fingers absently traced the spiral pattern of the silver amulet beneath her shirt.

Dawn had broken by the time she reached the graveyard, and she said a silent prayer before taking one of the shovels from inside the temple. She laid it at the foot of the plot next to the Shelynite’s. As the stones had as well as told her, Mitsuna lay upon the unmoved ground, his gold-flecked eyes open to the sky and his veins visible beneath his skin.

Lethia placed her hand on his heart and whispered a prayer. The veins faded, and the skin around his scars took a slight color again. Carefully, she lifted him to the side, ingested one of the mutagenic vials, and picked up the shovel as a false strength rushed through her veins. She had a short time to work before it wore off, but between the two she had brought along and a few hours of honest work, she managed before noon to dig seven feet down, lay him to rest, and shift the earth back over him.

“I do not want to know where he has gone,” she said, and drove a wooden marker into the ground with the last of her alchemical strength. “But may he do what must be done.”


End file.
